Whoop, sinking.
Just bloody ridiculous how hard the fishing is.
Honestly, I don't know how much longer I can last.
My belly does not like that saw sedge soup.
(COUGHS AND RETCHES)
It'd be nice to have a date that this finished on,
to know that your family are going to be back with you.
It's hard not knowing.
And I want to be true to myself,
even if that does mean that I can't stay out here as long as I'd planned.
(HELICOPTER FLIES OVERHEAD)
Just get mad PTSD triggers. I don't know why.
Shit.
I just don't have enough distractions
to keep my thoughts at bay.
Give myself a rule.
If you're going to tap, you tap in the morning.
I'm just going to see what the morning holds.
We're halfway to the South Pole. We're going to be totally alone.
It's Tasmania. It's cold, it's rain, it's snow.
We're all going to leave changed forever.
Holy fuck.
Yeah!
What is this place?
It's like a camp trip from hell.
Mother Nature's kicking my arse.
This experience...
Ah, you fucker!
..is just as much a mind game...
Oh, my heart.
..as it is a survival game.
(GRUNTS)
Is there another way?
$250,000 prize would change my life.
Yum.
I'm fucking over it.
Holy shit.
Is that not one of the most beautifulest things you've ever seen?
And it's silent.
It's so still.
Good morning!
Whoo!
Look, the sun's coming up. You can see it hitting the trees.
(WHISTLES)
Oh, it's just exquisite.
Day 12, today.
Da-dah-da-dah. We've hit a dozen.
Dozen eggs, thanks, love.
It's been an amazing journey so far, some really intense emotions.
I came here in the middle of the bush,
hoping that I can get that emotional connection with the land,
with the bush.
And I definitely have.
It's OK to step away from reality
and, you know, let that inner child go running around.
Pretend you're in a Alice Wonderland movie or a Lord of the Rings movie
and just totally immerse yourself in it.
And I've been lucky enough to be able to do that.
Just me...
..and this beautiful planet we live on.
It's amazing.
Absolutely amazing.
I mean, there's been some tears and some heavy thinking.
I feel like if I stay, I might go down a hole
where I don't want to go.
I want to end it on my own terms.
(PHONE BEEPS)
(PHONE RINGS)
Hey, it's Chris.
Yep.
Yep. I am officially tapping out.
Ready to take the next step.
Alright.
That's us.
I feel like I'm not going to regret leaving today.
Now is the time.
That could be my taxi, I reckon.
Here we go.
Come ashore, my friends.
What's going through your head right now?
Pretty happy about it, you know?
I wanted to leave on a high.
You know, resilience is a big thing.
And I've worked so hard on my mental game
over the last 10-odd years since, like, since leaving Iraq
and the Defence Force.
And...
Yeah. I don't know.
I guess realising that there's still a lot of work to go.
You know?
It was great. I was loving it.
But then, having those massive highs and those massive lows.
And the massive highs are awesome
but being out there with the lows,
I just couldn't find a way to manage that.
I definitely need people in my life.
Hopefully, I've inspired at least one person.
And at the very least, shown people with mental health challenges,
it does get better.
100%.
Most of the work is on you, but it does get better.
Didn't get that 250K and didn't get to the end,
but I've won.
I won so much.
I'm taking a lunch break.
"Lunch" break.
Sun's there.
I reckon midday's probably about when it gets to that tree.
So, when I line up the sun, I use hand angles.
So, the sun basically moves that far, 15 degrees, an hour,
so, it's about 40 minutes from that finger to that finger.
In 40 minutes' time, it'll be 12 o'clock.
(SIGHS)
Or you can just look at your watch.
But I don't have a watch.
You know, I feel disappointed that I haven't got any food yet.
I sure as hell have been trying.
I've been working my butt off a whole range of different ways.
Alright. Let's take this thing for test run.
Made a fishing rod.
Yes, come on, fishies.
Set a trap.
Great.
I've made the kayak.
Come on, fish, it's not that hard.
Come to papa.
Nothing is working out here.
I'm just about to go up and check my trap.
I'm really hungry.
I'm just losing weight by the week.
It is rapidly going down.
And I've got to be honest. I'm feeling fatigued.
Man...
..I just want to get a pademelon.
I need some food.
OK, I'm approaching the central live trapping area.
Well, nothing's touched the trap.
And I'm about to go through the motions that I've gone through
for, I think, eight days now,
where I look on here and there's no movement.
You bugger. Is that a wallaby?
So, sitting on the log. What are you doing?
Just stepped over the log, he's sniffing the edge of...
Oh, now, he's in the trip wire.
He just took a step.
Oh, dude.
Little bastard.
He jumped. So...
I got to watch that again.
So, he jumps down. There he is.
Dammit.
I do not understand how he melted through the trip wire.
Tripwire is still there. I can see it. And I don't get that.
So close.
There's no points for close.
It's just, it's all or nothing.
I've got to get some food.
OK. So, I've just spent the rainy arvo cleaning up my shelter.
Thought it'd be a good time to show you around.
So, this is my nest, it's where I sleep.
I'm very, very pleased with this.
Three logs across the bottom
and then, a log going lengthwise,
and then heaps of little logs.
Then, I whacked a heap of moss to make it nice and soft
and reeds for insulation and warmth.
At the end of my bed, I have my shoe rack.
Over here, we have my fire preparation zone
so that I can start my fires nice and easily, all the different sizes,
all the different kindling.
This is where I hang my ferro rod, so I never lose it.
And this is a cute little bit of paracord that I had.
And I've been tying little knots in it for every day.
So, we've got one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen.
Holy shit. Whoop.
Yoo-hoo!
I guess I've been thinking about
what areas of survival I'd like to improve,
and the main one is getting more food.
I've got a few plants here and there
and then...or I caught an eel.
Yeah, I'd definitely like to bolster that.
Maybe I'll have a scratch around and try and find a few worms.
I think getting worms
is the actual key to being successful at my fishing.
£ Digging for worms
£ Digging for worms. £
Because I think that's the best bait that's around.
I feel like worms are like gold.
I've been searching for worms, I think, and bugs every day
and not having any luck.
A worm. A worm. A worm. Ha, ha, ha.
Motherfucking worm.
Hee. A little fatty.
A worm.
Yeah, boy.
Two worms. Two worms.
Look at that fat boy.
There's the other half.
Oh, this is worm central.
Another one. Three worms.
I got the worms. Yes.
In you go. I'm sorry.
It's really important for me to get protein
so that I can stay out here longer.
Going get some eels.
I'm going to get some eels.
You know, it's a huge part of the survival game.
and the long-term survival is getting food
so that you can sustain yourself.
Eel fishing's a go-go tomorrow.
Ha-ha. Eww!
So, I spend my time dreaming about party pies,
like, lots and lots and lots of party pies.
Pizzas with massive topping and cheesy crust.
I just came so close to getting a pademelon this morning,
so I got to figure out
how the pademelon got through the trip wire without setting it off.
I'm going to go and test it.
And this is my pademelon substitute.
I have to get meat.
And, really, it's old mate pademelons,
which are my best chance of bulk meat.
Alright.
The trip line goes between there
and that white thing
bashed into the ground there.
Goes along there.
I'm just going to chuck in my little pretend pademelon,
stand back and see what happens.
Alright.
Here goes.
Yeah. It worked a treat.
Kind of driving me crazy as to how he got through it.
Oh, tell you what, if I get a pademelon, that would be so good.
Now I've got to untangle it all.
Good morning and welcome to day 14.
Love it.
14 notches in the belt.
If that's my belt, what's holding up my pants?
Am I wearing any pants?
OK, it's our second Sunday out here in the wild.
And as part of surviving,
thriving in these kind of tough environments,
it's important to have routine.
As a Christian, church is part of Sunday routine as well.
This week, we've got Amazing Grace.
And I don't have a beautiful voice to most people,
but as God's child, my voice is beautiful to Him.
£ Amazing grace
£ How sweet the sound
£ That saved a wretch like me
£ I once was lost
£ But now I'm found
£ Was blind but now I see. £
(BIRDS CAW)
So, being a Christian, my faith will help me with this experience.
I had a little bit of success finding some plants to eat,
but you can't stay out here forever
unless you start catching critters and eating them.
I hope to finish a possum trap today.
It would be awesome if I do.
It's already started to take shape.
So, that's the plan, start to get meat back on the menu...
..so lashing it together is next, and then door and trigger.
Getting exciting.
I worked as a vet for many years
and I've trapped feral cats.
If I can trap cats, I can trap possums.
So, I'm going to build a cat trap with a flap door.
(THUNDER RUMBLES)
Yep, it's raining now.
The hardest thing is the starvation and the isolation.
It's so difficult to survive out here.
I need everything to go perfectly
if I'm going to be the last one standing.
But the thing is, I have a never-give-up personality.
My strengths are perseverance, intelligence and problem-solving.
OK. It all comes up easy.
Door swings shut.
That is as tight as it goes, yeah?
There'll be possum, some time next week for sure, I reckon.
I'm pretty confident.
Great.
It's Day 15, feeling pretty good today.
I've just come down, doing my eel fishing.
You know, got to be in it to win it.
So...
I've got my two lines in and...
(CHUCKLING) ..I'm pretty hungry,
but I'm feeling pretty positive.
15's a big number.
Um...
Oh, fuck. My line. Hang on.
Yoo.
Yoo, yoo, yoo.
Oh, God.
Holy shit, it's an eel.
OK.
Don't fucking lose it, Katie.
Alright.
Yes.
Hoo, hoo, hoo.
Yeah, baby.
An eel.
Oh, my God.
Holy moly.
Wow, it's bigger than the one I caught before.
Oh, now, I've got to eat it.
The last time I caught an eel and ate it
it was so gross.
OK, let's put it out of its misery.
As an ecologist, someone who's worked hard
to protect the environment,
I feel so much empathy for everything, you know?
Bah, bah, bah... Don't go anywhere, mate.
Come back, come back, come back.
I'm so sorry, but I've got to eat you now, mate.
It's dead. That's horrible. I'm so sorry.
I'm so sorry, mate.
Woo. Holy shit, another eel.
Alright, I'm just going to start by cutting the head off.
So, I'm going to gut it, clean it, skin it.
I'll keep that for later. It can be bait or something.
Gross.
It's looking pretty good.
OK, I'm going to use this ash, put on its body,
try and make it less slippery.
OK, let's have a go at this.
Oh, yes, yes.
That's what we want.
Yeah, baby.
Eel skin, OK.
Shit, yeah.
OK. Eel time.
I'm going to give these guys a fry up.
I hope this makes them taste a little bit nicer.
Sizzle!
Yeah, baby.
It's all really good fats and protein for me...
..just like salmon night.
Elsie's parents always have salmon night.
I think on a Monday too.
Alright, that'll do.
Alright, let's eat some eel. Let's eat some eel.
You're going to love it, Katie. You're going to love it.
(EXHALES LOUDLY)
I'm going to start with a big chunk.
Hmm.
It's quite pleasant, really.
Hmm.
I want to give this a red-hot shot.
I'm learning so much about myself.
I'm actually enjoying it. Thank goodness.
It's ultimately the main heart of what I'm trying to do
is be a better mum for Juno.
Ha, you giggled.
Mmm. That tastes just like crayfish.
That's pretty good.
I've been thinking lots about my mum out here.
I try to draw strength from her.
My mum died when I was 19, which was obviously very tragic.
My mum was such a gutsy, go-getter feminist.
She would've been the best grandma.
I think she'd be proud, all I've achieved.
Certainly tastes better than day three.
Yum.
It's just those tail ends that are super oily
that turn my stomach a little bit.
(GAGS)
That's an oily bit.
Ooh... Don't vomit it up.
Ah...
Ooh.
That's hard.
I don't know what to do about those bits.
Think I need a rest.
Guessing this is the med check.
Can I grab an arm and do your blood pressure please?
Are you getting light-headed at all when you move around?
No. No.
I'm gonna face backwards.
What are you eating?
Pretty much nothing since we got here.
So ends another day... (SIGHS) ..like many others.
Still haven't got any food.
I was going to head up and look at the trap,
but I haven't heard any clunk
of the weight falling down on the trap.
And I did hear just a thump, thump of a pademelon before,
so I don't want to go and spook one
if they're about to go through the trap.
So I'll just go in the morning.
Yeah, it's such a difficult place to get food.
Alright. Bedtime.
VOICEOVER: Alone Australia is brought to you by Kia.
Experience the ultimate human endurance
as 10 contestants battle to survive
alone in the Tasmanian wilderness,
with the winner taking home a prize
worth $250,000.
I'm just about to check the trap.
I'm not holding much hope that something's in it.
Alright.
No action it looks like.
Oh, there is action.
It's been set off.
What happened?
I don't know.
I'm very, very interested to look at what the camera shows.
(GASPS)
What the hell is that?
He's chewing at the rope.
Goes under the trip wire.
They're all so smart.
Has a chew at the trigger mechanism.
Ugh, bloody hell.
That thing would've left it's scent all over the place,
so maybe the pademelons are going to be given this place
a wide berth for a little bit.
It just unfortunately means
that now I'm going to have to wait few more days
till the pademelons summon up the courage to go through here again.
So, yeah. It's pretty frustrating.
Just look at that beauty.
There she is.
It makes me so happy
having a platypus just come to visit every day.
£ Lady of the river
£ Can you hear me singing to you?
£ Can you hear me singing?
£ Can you hear me singing to you? £
(CHUCKLES)
I don't think she liked me singing to her.
The day has come.
I am heading out to actually look for food.
I want to stay for 90 days.
I need food.
The saw sedge was not a resounding success.
I vomited quite spectacularly.
I'm going to go find something I can eat.
I want to go up this creek
and see if I can find a big old fern.
Well, a young old fern.
I can get the middle out of it and have some carbohydrates tonight,
which would be very welcome.
Oh, there's a little tree fern up there. Amazing.
I keep forgetting that I haven't really eaten anything.
I think, "Oh yes, I'll just charge up that hill."
Oh, no, I won't. I'm not charging anywhere.
I wasn't sure how my body would go out here.
I'm 52. I mean, that's not young.
I've been slow all day and my muscles are heavy.
I have very little energy.
I'm sorry, tree.
There's the centre heart piece.
That's the edible bit,
but it's so tannin-y,
there's no way I can eat that as it is.
What I'm going to do is boil them
and then, once the tannins are leeched out,
I think this could be some good starch.
Alright, oopsy.
Look how much tannin has already just come out of that.
Actually, that's almost edible. Ah...
I found food. Yay.
But it's not much.
I certainly worked hard for it.
I definitely reckon I burnt more calories
than I'm going to get out of that little tree fern heart.
But I'm going to need some protein and fat soon.
I'm going to need to catch fish or a wallaby or an eel.
I do have a fairly well-developed predator inside.
I need food, I'll hunt.
OK. The possum trap is finished.
Locking log sits on top.
So, we just need a possum to wander past
and decide it wants to go in there.
I really need some meat so that I can stay out here
as hopefully the longest.
The door slipped back then.
It's going to be a gap here that they might be able to get out of,
so might just get even two bits of timber and lay that on top.
It's so close to finished.
We just need to make it, so the door doesn't pull forward
or pull into the trap when the trigger weight is on it.
That really hurt.
The saw just tapped me in the knee there.
Just check it's not bleeding.
Feels like it could be.
Three little saw teeth marks.
It's almost nothing, but it could still get infected
and send me home.
Who knows what was on that blade?
Over my career as a vet,
I've seen lots of small puncture wounds become filthy abscesses.
A bit damp.
So, they're the three teeth blades.
And I think it really just, just touched them.
Just the teeth are so pointy that for a 2mm or 3mm cut,
who knows how deep they went.
Don't think putting chlorhexidine on it's going to help very much
because it's only going to get the surface.
I'll try and scrub it in as deep as we can.
I think that's about as good as we can do.
If it gets infected, could be the end.
That would be a bummer.
(SIGHS)
Feeling very frustrated.
Just over nicking that knee with the saw.
(SIGHS)
Just hit the wall all of a sudden, hey.
But there won't be any quitting.
I promised myself I wouldn't quit.
My faith in God will encourage me to keep going.
Dear God, please bless me with a possum
in the next week or two or some big meat catch.
It'll be a huge boost to my morale.
Amen.
VOICEOVER: Alone Australia is brought to you by Kia.
Experience the ultimate human endurance
as 10 contestants battle to survive
alone in the Tasmanian wilderness
with the winner taking home a prize worth $250,000.
Good morning.
Had a good night.
Dreaming of fish all night.
Dreaming of fish and fishing.
Fish, fish, fish, fish, fish.
I have very little energy, so I need to catch food.
I need to catch fish.
Yes.
I am just watching my lines.
There's nothing pinging.
(GASPS) You see? You see?
There she is.
That's a sign. That's my bird.
That's a good omen.
It's kind of cool feeling my hunter come on.
It's a really different way of being.
My senses sharpen and everything comes into very clear focus.
I've got a fish.
Holy shit, got a fish.
Here we go.
Ha, got you.
Oh, my God.
I got a fish.
Oh, you little beauty. I got a fish.
Oh, I got a fish.
I'm eating fish for breakfast. Oh, my goodness.
Oh, my god, my first real food in 20 days.
Arrgh!
Whoo!
I am going to cook it all up in the pan...
(SIZZLE!)
..so that I do not lose one...
..bit of juice or fat or anything.
Fried fish skin fat.
Oh, my God, I'm so excited.
Doesn't need to cook for long.
Salt, please?
Don't mind if I do.
Salted trout, holy shit balls.
Let it sit there and do its thing.
Alright. I reckon that's just about done.
Oh. Oh, look at that.
Oh...
That is the most tender,
exquisite flavour.
Oh, my goodness.
Food in my belly.
That's such an amazing feeling.
Even if it's days until I catch another fish,
just to know that I can catch a fish here, game changer.
It's just that deeper level of being at home here.
Being able to feed myself
so that I can just basically stay as long as I want.
Oh... Oh, my God.
(SIGHS) Right.
Day 20, no food.
Each time I've tried something here,
spent a fair bit of effort and nothing works.
And I've got some set lines out in the water.
Alright.
That'll do it.
But no sign of any fish.
Stop playing hard to get.
For me to win this, I have to get stuff.
It rained most of the night. It's really muddy.
Harder to get to the riverbank, harder to land a fish too.
Hmm.
Line looks a bit tighter than it was before.
This line was slack before.
Now, it's tight.
Here comes something.
Bugger.
Oh, shit.
Shit. There's a bloody eel on it.
Here. Come this way, little bugger.
Shit, OK. I need a net.
Need a landing area.
How well's he hooked?
I've never actually caught a freshwater eel.
I don't know how slimy they are.
I know that they're supposed to be very slimy.
(SUCKS IN BREATH) Shit.
He's well hooked, I want to drag him up on that area over there
but the line's not long enough.
Don't kick.
Shit. Now, it's caught around this bloody thing.
Alright, I might cut the line.
Fuck.
Dodgy business.
This feels wrong,
but it's going to prevent me from dragging it out in a poor spot.
Alright, I'm going to keep this into my teeth.
Oh, don't... Yeah, he's caught around a bloody log.
You've got to be fucking shitting me.
Ah, get off, you bastard.
OK, he's off the log.
Oh, could be saved.
Knife's out, slice inside.
(GASPS) Shit.
Fuck.
Fuck. I lost it.
Shit.
Fuck's sake.
Shit.
Shit!
Fuck.
Oh, you little beauty.
Got to get food, got to get food, got to get food
if I want to win.
Whoo-hoo!
I am quite competitive.
If someone dangles $250,000 in front of your face,
you're sort of like, "Oh, yeah." Let's keep going.
I can win this.
Oh, wow. So many wallaby prints.
I've got a system that can work
and I can procure food, which is the game.
Captions by Red Bee Media (c) SBS Australia 2023